Most of what you say here re: mediation - how it's handled, what it does, and how it will likely result - makes perfect sense to me. But I cannot resist elaborating and questioning.... (uho, another novel).

Yes there are a lot of details involved. But you have suggested (or I have perceived you to suggest) that it will only involve a couple of actual meetings with the affected parties. This I have difficulty with. The defendants (J3) are business adversaries/competitors. It just seems to me that after technical wrangling and refinement of what's what (which may take several meetings and a lot of paper-passing), the pursuit of settlements would necessitate multiple meetings involving our team, the mediator, a ONE defendant at a time, thereby protecting the proprietary information of each defendant from their co-defendant adversaries. This opinion based on the suspicion/expectation that a settlement would be based on "actuals" of past sales, broken down in detail, right up to the most recent available data. I would expect each settlement negotiation to be "sheltered" from the ears of the other defendants - not only to protect the defendant in question, but also to protect our team's interests.

I would certainly agree that settlements coming out of mediation (by the end of the mediation period) should not necessarily be expected. One reason is the fact that a settlement resulting purely from mediation would be a setlement regarding PAST infringement only. I cannot see how a mediation- directed settlement, or a damages judgment from court proceedings, could capture anything more than PAST infringement. In any case, a license to resolve FUTURE infringement will be required. Thus, the FUTURE aspect would likely, IMO, be addressed in separate meetings between our team and each defendant (no mediator).

This whole thing has gotten much more complex than I thought it would. And I, like many, thought Toshiba would be first to fold. It sure doesn't look that way now (unless Ward gets severely pissed and applies a lot of pressure).

The complexity has clouded my thoughts of stategy in the instant litigation, and in what is going on at Alliacense. Is Alliacense holding back on signing on the dotted line, or anxiously waving around their pen for a contract to hit the table? I'd sure like to see a couple of fat cats as new licensees....for big money.

It seems to me that, just as fat settlements with the J3/ARM will influence the size of future settlements with others, the inverse may be true. If we got a couple of nice, big fat juicey settlements from others, it could influence what the mediator or the court may consider a reasonable settlement/damage assessment in the future (or, assuming our team is pushing for really big bucks, whether we are truly negotiating in good faith).

Oh well. The 10K is less than 3 weeks away, and with it may come some insights beyond the expected financial data.

I'm plum out of babble, and KNOW nuttin'!

SGE